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After going out with the kids from school as part of culture week last Thursday, I was really keen to go out and give it a go myself. Nick + Dana were heading out fishing this afternoon and Marie and I joined them. Was nice riding out on the snowmobile, though pretty bumpy without much soft snow, and good fun going across patches of ice. We headed way past where we went with the kids last week and ended up a good 10-12 miles north east of Tunt up the Kuskokwim river:

After driving through the old ice holes Nick had used on Sunday, it didn’t take long for Marie to catch a fish - note Dana in the background hadn’t even got her gear setup yet!

But, after hooking my first fish, I couldn’t then get it reeled in due to ice on the line. After it got off the hook, I re-baited and dropped again, then got this decent sized pike a couple of minutes later:

Although it was still going along with the idea of cutting a hole and throwing in a fishing line, it wasn’t quite as traditional sitting or resting on the snowmobile whilst fishing! But, a little before Marie had taken this photo one of the locals had ridden up with a bunch of kids and his wife in a sled on the back telling us we were fishing in the wrong place. When I asked him where the right place was, he smiled and pointed further up the river and simply said “Where we caught 300 fish. We were blessed today.”. Thought he was pulling my leg, but sure enough their sled was packed with fish to the point of having tarpaulin over the top to stop them falling out!

Coming back the temperature had started dropping, so we didn’t waste much time getting home. It really was cool riding back along the river coming home with the sun low on the horizon, knowing you’d been out and caught your own dinner. One of the books I’ve been reading is about the native cultures and stories of Alaska and one of the ideas the eskimo have is to only take what you need, so I was quite happy with only catching the one fish in the couple of hours or so we were there. As Marie still had fish in the freezer, she gave her’s to us, and Nick + Dana ended up with two fish. Not sure who’s were who, but these are the two we’re going to figure out how to cook tomorrow - that’s a 12″ rule to show their size!

Never had pike before, so will be different. Kat might give Martina a call and see if she has any traditional recipes we can try out. But, I’d really enjoyed getting out of the village for a little bit, and gonna try dragging Kat along next time too

This afternoon I managed to get out manucking, or ice fishing Travis had called at lunch time asking if I was up for driving the 4-wheeler with some kids in the trailer and I jumped at the chance!

About half-way to the fishing spot I realised why I’d drawn the short straw in driving the 4-wheeler as it has no heating elements on the handlebars or throttle trigger Even with thick mittens on, when it’s -22C without windchill, squeezing a metal throttle trigger isn’t much fun after a while.

But, after 30 minutes or so riding we got to the fishing spot and they brought out the auger, a petrol-driven machine to drill down through the ice. After 3 months wondering how thick the ice was, they had drive this all the way down so the engine was pretty much into the hole - a good 5/6 feet down:

Due to the cold, the engine kept spluttering and cutting out after they got the first hole cut, but a couple of other holes were just about open for the kids to start getting their fishing gear ready:

It’s literally a piece of wood with a fishing line wrapped around one end that is lowered through the hole in the ice down into the water below. Nothing too technical, but they’d caught two good-sized pike yesterday so it doesn’t need to be fancy!

Still takes a lot of patience sitting fishing when the windchill easily brought the temperature below -30C. This kid didn’t seem too bothered though:

Apart from the wind, it was very pretty out on the river. It was weird the way the wind had created different snow drifts over the ice, and even looking at everything through tinted goggles (which I was very glad I’d borrowed off Jason!) it was beautiful:

Even without a cloud in the sky to block the sun, it wasn’t giving off much warmth! After only half an hour or so the kids wanted to head back as without many fishing holes open and such a cold wind, they weren’t having all that much fun. I broke out a couple of heating pads for the kids to hold on the way back as they got bounced around in the trailer on the back of the 4-wheeler, and they seemed fine when we got back to school. Seems to be a lot of fascination from the kids when people come back from hunting or fishing wanting to know whether we caught anything as there’s still a good portion of their food that seems to come from their own hunting + fishing trips.

But, we got back to school just in time to see some of the native dancing really coming on well after a few days of practice:

I’d tried to take a video, but the camera doesn’t like coming in from the cold and working indoors again right away so the lens kept steaming up. Maybe they’ll have something tomorrow where the kids demonstrate what they’ve learnt over the past week and can try again.